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At present we can only speak with certainty of the monumental inscriptions, the books that fell in the hands of the ecclesiastics at the time of the conquest having been destroyed. No truly genuine written monuments of the Mayas are known to exist, except those inclosed within the sealed apartments, where the priests and learned men of MAYAB hid them from the Nahualt or Toltec invaders.
It is a well-known fact that many tribes, as that of the Itzaes, retreating before the Nahualt invaders, after the surrender and destruction of their cities, sought refuge in the islands of the lake Peten of to-day, and called it Petenitza, the islands of the Itzaes; or in the well nigh inaccessible valleys, defended by ranges of towering mountains.
Its symbols are not to be seen in Chichen the city of the holy and learned men, Itzaes but are frequently met with in the northern parts of the peninsula, and all the regions where the Nahualt influence predominated. CAN and the members of his family worshipped Deity under the symbol of the mastodon’s head.
The almond-eyed, flat-nosed Siamese race of Copan is not to be mistaken for the long, big-nosed, flat-headed remnant of the Nahualt from Palenque, who are said to have invaded the country some time at the beginning of the Christian era; and whose advent among the Mayas, whose civilization they appear to have destroyed, has been commemorated by calling the west, the region whence they came, according to Landa, Cogolludo and other historians, NOHNIAL, a word which means literally big noses for our daughters; whilst the coming of the bearded men from the east, better looking than those of the west, if we are to give credit to the bas-relief where their portraits are to be seen, was called CENIAL ornaments for our daughters.
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